> Explaining that these sources of information are not reliable, because they use techniques to manipulate public opinion. We have to discredit entire subsets of media that aren't willing to give up manipulative practices.
Sure. I can believe that's a step in the right process. But have you ever tried to discredit Fox News for pushing the lie that "Obama is a Muslim" ?? Or "Obama was born in Kenya" ??
Even if you point out that a certain news publication does this, no one really seems to care in my experience.
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Look, people believe Obama was not born in the USA because they _want_ to believe that their political opponents are cheating at the process. And Fox News simply delivers to them what they want.
Cater to people's worst desires and worst beliefs... you know, those beliefs that no one else is willing to discuss... and you'll become a trustworthy friend of theirs.
Similarly: people want to be optimistic about COVID19. They want to believe in a cure (that isn't that cure that liberals are pushing). So now you have Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin. Give them the optimism they so desire, and they'll believe you.
People are right to be scared and afraid of COVID19. People are right to search for a cure and have optimism. But its when these media outlets feed on these fears and pushes misinformation that things get dangerous.
The idea isn't to focus on any individual bit of misinformation. Its to throw away the whole thing, conceptually, as a bad way of getting information, as a low quality source of it. It might have to include some left-leaning media as well, or most media in general as we know it today, because unfortunately most media today is manipulative instead of informative.
The hard bit is offering a good alternative, based on a decent set of principles, that will preserve its independence. Some principles might include:
- linking and detailed referencing to existing, primary sources
- grading the quality of information sources based on levels of evidence determined by experts
- showing the work i.e. using modern tech to allow the reader to expand on the whys and details if they want to (wiki style) without necessarily getting bogged down getting the gist of it (if they don't)
- you should be able to get from a lightweight, easy-read, to-the-point news article with a video to a full blown code-available paper that is also a Jupyther notebook with the anonymized dataset included, if you click deep enough
- full transparency to the entire process with public versioning of drafts and detailed commentary / editorialization etc - for those that want to access it. Open source and open data journalism, science and science communication.
(I'll be honest, the above list is super rough WIP at the moment - some of those might turn out to be bad ideas)
The reason why people might care now is that they are actually dying or getting maimed because they were exposed to misinformation. Between special interests pushing their narratives and solo manipulative grifters that are banking on building an audience, its hard to tell who to trust.
With a system like this, I suspect it might actually be possible to remove taboos eventually. Taboos are only taboos because we fear their effects on mass misinformation, misinterpretation and other systemic (un)intended negative effects. If we can find a new way of thinking that gains wide acceptance and is immune to those flaws, then maybe we can open up taboo topics.
> The idea isn't to focus on any individual bit of misinformation. Its to throw away the whole thing, conceptually, as a bad way of getting information, as a low quality source of it. It might have to include some left-leaning media as well, or most media in general as we know it today, because unfortunately most media today is manipulative instead of informative.
No. The important thing is to _GET OTHER PEOPLE_ to do this.
My mom, or my sister's father in law, will not trust what I say if it contradicts their news sources. So there's no feasible way I (or really, anyone else) can get them to throw away their bad news sources.
- don't focus on what their news sources are saying but instead
- you focus on why the old way is bad in general (across both left and right news media).
Thats the new message. Not "your news sources are bad" but "the entire approach of most news media today is bad. here is this new media utilizing a new approach where anyone can do the work and is fully open source so harder to manipulate"
Sure. I can believe that's a step in the right process. But have you ever tried to discredit Fox News for pushing the lie that "Obama is a Muslim" ?? Or "Obama was born in Kenya" ??
Even if you point out that a certain news publication does this, no one really seems to care in my experience.
-------
Look, people believe Obama was not born in the USA because they _want_ to believe that their political opponents are cheating at the process. And Fox News simply delivers to them what they want.
Cater to people's worst desires and worst beliefs... you know, those beliefs that no one else is willing to discuss... and you'll become a trustworthy friend of theirs.
Similarly: people want to be optimistic about COVID19. They want to believe in a cure (that isn't that cure that liberals are pushing). So now you have Hydroxychloroquine and Ivermectin. Give them the optimism they so desire, and they'll believe you.
People are right to be scared and afraid of COVID19. People are right to search for a cure and have optimism. But its when these media outlets feed on these fears and pushes misinformation that things get dangerous.